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Register a new userThe Diversity of Thick Galactic Discs
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Anastasia Kasparova V
Publication date
2016
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Although thick stellar discs are detected in nearly all edge-on disc galaxies, their formation scenarios still remain a matter of debate. Due to observational difficulties, there is a lack of information about their stellar populations. Using the Russian 6-m telescope BTA we collected deep spectra of thick discs in three edge-on S0-a disc galaxies located in different environments: NGC4111 in a dense group, NGC4710 in the Virgo cluster, and NGC5422 in a sparse group. We see intermediate age (4-5 Gyr) metal rich ([Fe/H] $sim$ -0.2 - 0.0 dex) stellar populations in NGC4111 and NGC4710. On the other hand, NGC5422 does not harbour young stars, its disc is thick and old (10 Gyr), without evidence for a second component, and its $alpha$-element abundance suggests a 1.5-2 Gyr long formation epoch implying its formation at high redshift. Our results suggest the diversity of thick disc formation scenarios.
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We analyse the phase-space structure of simulated thick discs that are the result of a significant merger between a disc galaxy and a satellite. Our main goal is to establish what would be the characteristic imprints of a merger origin for the Galactic thick disc. We find that the spatial distribution predicted for thick disc stars is asymmetric, seemingly in agreement with recent observations of the Milky Way thick disc. Near the Sun, the accreted stars are expected to rotate more slowly, to have broad velocity distributions, and to occupy preferentially the wings of the line-of-sight velocity distributions. The majority of the stars in our model thick discs have low eccentricity orbits (in clear reference to the pre-existing heated disc) which gives rise to a characteristic (sinusoidal) pattern for their line of sight velocities as function of galactic longitude. The z-component of the angular momentum of thick disc stars provides a clear discriminant between stars from the pre-existing disc and those from the satellite, particularly at large radii. These results are robust against the particular choices of initial conditions made in our simulations, and thus provide clean tests of the disc heating via a minor merger scenario for the formation of thick discs.
We have obtained high-resolution spectra and carried out a detailed elemental abundance analysis for a new sample of 899 F and G dwarf stars in the Solar neighbourhood. The results allow us to, in a multi-dimensional space consisting of stellar ages, detailed elemental abundances, and full kinematic information for the stars, study and trace their respective origins. Here we briefly address selection criteria and discuss how to define a thick disc star. The results are discussed in the context of galaxy formation.
Recent observations suggest a double-branch behaviour of Li/H versus metallicity in the local thick and thin discs. This is reminiscent of the corresponding O/Fe versus Fe/H behaviour, which has been explained as resulting from radial migration in the Milky Way disc. We use a semi-analytical model of disc evolution with updated chemical yields and parameterised radial migration. We explore the cases of long-lived (red giants of a few Gy lifetime) and shorter-lived (Asymptotic Giant Branch stars of several 10$^8$ yr) stellar sources of Li, as well as those of low and high primordial Li. We show that both factors play a key role in the overall Li evolution. We find that the observed two-branch Li behaviour is only directly obtained in the case of long-lived stellar Li sources and low primordial Li. In all other cases, the data imply systematic Li depletion in stellar envelopes, thus no simple picture of the Li evolution can be obtained. This concerns also the reported Li/H decrease at supersolar metallicities.
The core-cusp problem is one of the controversial issues in the standard paradigm of $Lambda$ cold dark matter ($Lambda$CDM) theory. However, under the assumption of conventional spherical symmetry, the strong degeneracy among model parameters makes it unclear whether dwarf spheroidal (dSph) galaxies indeed have cored dark matter density profiles at the centers. In this work, we revisit this problem using non-spherical mass models, which have the advantage of being able to alleviate the degeneracy. Applying our mass models to the currently available kinematic data of the eight classical dSphs, we find that within finite uncertainties, most of these dSphs favor cusped central profiles rather than cored ones. In particular, Draco has a cusped dark matter halo with high probability even considering a prior bias. We also find the diversity of the inner slopes in their dark matter halos. To clarify the origin of this diversity, we investigate the relation between the inner dark matter density slope and stellar-to-halo mass ratio for the sample dSphs and find this relation is generally in agreement with the predictions from recent $Lambda$CDM and hydrodynamical simulations. We also find that the simulated subhalos have anti-correlation between the dark matter density at 150 pc and pericenter distance, which is consistent with the observed one. We estimate their astrophysical factors for dark matter indirect searches and circular velocity profiles, associated with huge uncertainties. To more precisely estimate their dark matter profiles, wide-field spectroscopic surveys for the dSphs are essential.
Thick disks appear to be common in external large spiral galaxies and our own Milky Way also hosts one. The existence of a thick disk is possibly directly linked to the formation history of the host galaxy and if its properties is known it can constrain models of galaxy formation and help us to better understand galaxy formation and evolution. This brief review attempts to highlight some of the characteristics of the Galactic thick disk and how it relates to other stellar populations such as the thin disk and the Galactic bulge. Focus has been put on results from high-resolution spectroscopic data obtained during the last 10 to 15 years.
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